We reserved and paid for a king beach front room at Zulum months in advance. Since we had used a third party booking service, we followed up with an email 1 month in before our stay and received confirmation from the manager that everything was fine with our reservation.

When we arrived, everything was not fine. Instead of being upfront that there was a problem, they simply checked us into a double beach front located in the attic space above the room we booked. I am 6’2” which meant I could only walk directly down the middle of the room, where the peak of the roof was and I did not fit on the full sized bed.

When we pointed out that this was not the room we reserved, they first said they could not be responsible for what the third party booking service told us. When we produced a printout of the emailed confirmation from the manager, we were told he no longer worked there and they could not honor what we had been told by an ex-employee one month earlier. They also went on to explain that they rented the room we had reserved to people who were going to stay for a longer period of time than we were. Basically, they cancelled our reservation because they found someone that wanted to rent the room for more than the 4 days we had already paid for.

Finally, after the situation deteriorated more, the manager became involved in the discussions, and it turned out it was the same manager that had confirmed our reservation. The same individual we were told no longer worked at the hotel.

This was a bad situation that was handled very poorly. During the check in process it was obvious there was some sort of an issue with the reservation, but instead of explaining that there was a problem, they tried to trick us into accepting a room other than was we reserved. Also, the refusal to take responsibility for the situation was infuriating.

We loved our stay at Zulum. The first day we were disappointed that we didn't have chairs on our balcony and they compomised and gave us two comfortable bean bag chairs. That worked great! I would make sure I got a beach front room again because the view was amazing and the breeze kept the bugs away and kept it cool at night. We had the top floor of the beach front building. We loved it but don't expect a perfect room. The shower hardly worked and it was quite small without a dresser. On the upside, as I said before the view was great and we spent many hours on the balcony reading and just meditating. We also loved the hanging bed. We had breakfast every morning by Raul, a great chef, and our waiter Luis that we came to know and love as the week went on. The beach was amazing and we felt safe and it was not touristy. Our room was cleaned well every day and other staff members were always smiling and polite. Finally, we met Abolina, the bar tender and got to know him the last night. He made us feel comfortable and made our final night even better.

My boyfriend and I just came back from a 5 day trip in Mexico (Playa del Carmen and Tulum). We chose to stay at Zulum (for night #3) and we were very disappointed. We paid 165 USD for a "King Suite" with a jungle view thinking that the hotel would be worth the price (the website is amazing!). Our room only had a partial wall (6 feet of wall and then wood beams which you could see and hear through) between us and our neighbours. The netting around our bed had holes in it and did not close all the way (missing about 2 feet). Even though we were right on the ocean we did not get any breeze.
Basically this hotel was WAY overpriced for what it was. If you are paying 165 USD you expect way more.
I have travelled many parts of Mexico and really felt that I was ripped off on the price of this hotel. I would definitely suggest NOT staying here (please note that we loved the hotels that we stayed at in Playa and are writing positive reviews for those).

Thanks to the new management of Felipe, we found the Zulum property, a small 18-room hotel right on the beach, becoming more appealing and friendly every one of the five days we stayed there. Our first night was a disappointment, but a word to Felipe and he made it right. He moved us to a much better room which met our needs well. We LOVED the bed - on ropes and swinging whenever we wanted it to...like being rocked to sleep at night!

Felipe and the friendly Mayan staff, quite a few of whom got their experience at Kailuum (a wonderful tent resort on the beach which no longer exists) made our stay warm and comfortable.
Both the food and the service at the small restaurant improved during our stay, as did the general cleanliness and appearance of the hotel.

We applaud Felipe's efforts to provide a more "Kailuum-like" environment at Zulum, and wish him the best. We would stay here again, as long as the current management stays in place.